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Yesterday I got whacked in the face by a badminton racquet. I play four times a week with faculty and staff at the local college and I’m the least athletic, so I am often where I shouldn’t be. Fortunately, it was a glancing blow because my playing partner saw my stupid face at the last second and did his best to pull back. Unfortunately, I was playing with our best player who is by far our hardest hitter. So today I woke up with a welt under my right eye, a tender bruise across the bridge of my nose, and a small, painful knot on my left eyebrow. And a headache centered around my eyes and nose. Story fodder!

Working Title: Advice for Today1st Sentence: When you wake up in your drunk girlfriend’s arms, still a little drunk yourself, and you realize that you forgot to set the alarm an hour early so you’d have time to run home for fresh clothes—because, don’t forget, you’ve got that important meeting first thing—please, please, don’t even try to persuade yourself that yesterday’s clothes will do.Favorite Sentence: When, on the badminton court, you are minimally skilled but maximally passionate, when you have never been even a little bit athletic but you happen to be in the shape of your life and like to show it with manic chases and wild leaps, when everyone knows that you dearly love hitting a birdie just as hard as you possibly can—even if that means hitting it out or into the net—it’s easy enough to make an intentional racquet swing look like a mistake.Word Length: 974

Claire Guyton

can't thank the Maine Arts Commission enough for granting her their 2012 literary fellowship, which she used to launch Daily Shorty. Claire writes, edits, coaches other writers, and blogs in Lewiston, where she stays sane by working on her scraggly yard, running 5Ks as slowly as possible, perfecting cracker recipes, and playing badminton. She spends the remainder of her free time with her sweet husband and perfect cats. You can contact Claire at dailyshorty@gmail.com.